Reports prepared for the county council’s cabinet reveal results have improved at Key Stage 1 (seven-year-olds), Key Stage 2 (11-year-olds), and Key Stage 4 (16-year-olds) in the last year, though still trail the national average.

However, a review has also identified “strong criticism and cynicism” about Raising the Bar (RtB) among some teachers – despite the principles of the project being “widely accepted”.

One Suffolk teacher said they would be “surprised if there wasn’t a bit of scepticism” given the pace of change in the education system generally.

The Gateway Review recommends looking again at the RtB’s communications approach and a change of tone in messages to the education system to emphasise that “we are all in this together”.

SCC has announced a range of measures in response to the review including a transformation of the Learning and Improvement Service, with a new management team put in place.

A council spokesman said: “We have already made changes to the work we are doing to reflect the findings.

“Key to this is transforming services available to schools, both provided by the county council and externally. Plans are now being finalised to create the Learning Partnership, which has been developed and will be led by schools. And Schools Choice - our new organisation providing traded services to schools – is now up and running.

“We have also already restructured the senior team within the learning and improvement service – which is strengthening our ability to challenge and support schools to improve.”

The Gateway Review also praised aspects of the RtB programme including efforts to bring education closer to the world of work and the Families of Schools initiative in which schools form “improvement groups”.

Geoff Barton, headteacher at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds, said he would be surprised if there was not some scepticism about the programme, “given how much change takes place in education, both nationally and locally.

“It’s almost inevitable culturally that there is an element of people who are going to be sceptical when they’re invited along to another conference with a slogan like Raising the Bar,” he said.

“I was one of the arch-sceptics at one of the first meetings I went to. But what struck me was that they had marshalled people who weren’t just in education but people from business and industry and it did seem perhaps that there was something different about it.”

Academic results for the year 2013 show that the number of pupils achieving the required standard in reading, writing and maths in Key Stage 1 rose by 3%, 3% and 1% respectively from the year before.

In Key Stage 2 the proportion of pupils who achieved the headline attainment figure rose by 3% between 2012 and 2013, though remains 5% below the national average.

The corresponding measure for Key Stage 4 saw a 3% rise year on year, though also 5% below the national average.

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Why should we not be cynical? The County has not listened to teachers or school leaders during their consultations - and look at the result of the report on the County by Ofsted? If that had been a report for a school, it would have been closed - probably re-named - and then reopened with a complete overhaul of the leadership team.
Why have the County allowed failing schools to stay unchanged for so long without stepping in? Why has the focus been purely on changing the system for the past 8 years and the colossal amount of money and time spent reorganising schools, that could have used the money for school improvement?
Raising the Bar...as always, no-one in Suffolk is available to tell us how high, what for or how...just left to plod along and get on with it! Cynical?

They can hardly be blamed for being cynical. Government and councils play about with the education system on almost a monthly basis. Usually pushing some narrow politically-inspired agenda, rather than anything backed up with any evidence. Rather like the way that, when I used to work for BT, every time a new senior manager was appointed he had to launch a massive reorganisation - rarely for any better reason than that he wanted to make his mark on the organisation. And they always accused the staff of being over cynical about it when we didn't support it wholeheartedly.